Endless Loop: Of Course

Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.

“Of Course” by Jane’s Addiction

Way, way back in the long ago, when I spent a few years in a (poorly named) band that would eventually dissolve because I was an asshole, we had a veritable bevy of cover tunes we liked to play around with during practice and sometimes perform at shows. We regularly touched on songs from Pulp, James Kochalka Superstar, and Cyndi Lauper, but one of my all time favorites to play was “Of Course” by Jane’s Addiction, a violin-laden, exotic and trippy jam taken from the band’s 1990 album Ritual de lo Habitual. None of us were versed in the violin, so we just upped the droney, psychedelic aspects of the song instead, played it as loudly as possible, and dragged it on and on, a fuzzy, loopy caterwaul for our deadened eardrums.

It was fun.

I remember getting Ritual de lo Habitual when I was fifteen or so, a few years after its release and the (first) breakup of the band, one of my selections from one of those CD clubs where the first nine cost a penny…and then my everlasting soul after that. Pretty quickly, it became one of those albums that I listened to over and over again, the singles I initially purchased it for (“Been Caught Stealing” and “Stop” respectively) falling to the wayside and the deeper cuts becoming my favorites. “Of Course” was always the glowing, standout.

Years later when I was performing the song with my band, I kind of got to where I preferred our take of the track more, in all of its reverb-drenched, droning, repetitive goodness. Then I listened to Perry Farrell and company’s original version again and realized how stupid that was. It’s like a tune from some twisted, Bizarro World version of Fiddler on the Roof. The fact that a song as weird and different as “Of Course” was on an album that sold over 2 million copies is just astounding.

On a side note, I used the “clean” cover for this article since that’s the version I had…and in some ways, I think it’s more powerful and subversive, the First Amendment text being a little “fuck you” to the retailers that refused to carry the original because of a little artistic nudity.

From a bunker somewhere in Central Texas, Thomas H. Williams spends most of his time with his wife, his two sons, and his increasingly neurotic dog. He listens to a lot of music, drinks a lot of excellent beers, and gets out from time to time. For even more shenanigans, visit heavenisanincubator.blogspot.com.